Philbin's packet impressed everyone

Jeff Ireland said that 15 minutes into Joe Philbin's first interview, he knew the Dolphins were onto something. Stephen Ross said after his interview he talked to Carl Peterson, his long-time friend and adviser, and Peterson told him it was the best presentation by a coach he'd ever seen.

Yeah, Joe Philbin apparently had the Dolphins at hello. Or at least that's the narrative today.

So how did Philbin do it?

“I put together a packet of information that I really started working on in 2009 maybe," he told me Saturday. "And I’ve been amending it and adjusting it and tweaking it for the last couple of years. But I had things ready to go in case an opportunity would have presented itself. I had really worked on it hard in the summer. Obviously I don’t have a lot of time to work on it during the season. It’s been brewing for a while.”

The packet, which Ross indicated is about an inch or two thick, is meant to show teams what Philbin is about. It speaks of Philbin's history, his philosophy …

“Yeah, expectations, values, things in my core belief, base philosophy," he said. "It’s not how we’re going to attack Cover 2 but how we’re going to run an offense. What kind of system we envision running. Are we going to be a multiple formation team. Are we going to be a no-huddle team, things along those lines. More broad based.”

After the interview, Philbin was happy with his performance. He said he got on a plane home and felt like he was flying at 30,000 feet -- plane or not.

“I though it went well, I really did," he said. "When I flew home I thought it went very well. And I thought we got along well, also. Mr. Ross and I, the first time we sat down, just the two of us for well over an hour. And we kicked around a lot of things and talked about the things he had done in his career. I thought it was good.”